to my possible future husband
by ulstergirl
Summary: Nancy finds a note she wrote a long time ago, and is finally able to deliver it.


Nancy stumbles across it when she's searching her childhood bedroom closet for something else—a battered notebook, the green cardboard cover already half detached from the spiral binding.

Bess had no siblings but all her diaries were cute, watercolor images of girls on front, shiny faux gold lock with a tiny key that Nancy could easily pick given thirty seconds. When Nancy had been eight years old, even nine, her case notes had been in her everyday journals; then she had begun to separate them. This one is so old that she drew diagrams of locks in the margins, and a good third of it is just her thoughts, unrelated to mysteries.

_I hate that Dad's a lawyer._

_I mean, I don't, not really. I'm really proud of him and he's a great lawyer. But this is the third day he's been away and he could only talk to me for five minutes on the phone before he had to go, and Hannah's here but Hannah's not _Dad _and I miss him so much._

_Bess did that silly thing today - the game where she asked me and George to name off a bunch of things and then we counted off to predict our futures. Live in a mansion or a shack, drive a bicycle or a fancy car. Job of future husband?_

_And all I could think was that I will never marry a guy who is a lawyer._

_I don't even know if I'll ever be married. I don't know if I want to be. Dad misses Mom so much and if I did get married and I was a private detective and I had a child, that child would be as miserable and sad as I am right now missing me, and I don't want that. It would just be easier not to get married. I could hang out with Bess and George and Helen forever. And no one would be around to tell me what to do._

_I told Hannah tonight that maybe I'd never get married and she just smiled a little and said that maybe one day I might change my mind. Maybe she felt bad and missed her husband. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. I need to be better about talking to people if I'm going to be a detective._

_I wonder if Dad misses me as much as I miss him. I keep thinking that if he did, he wouldn't be gone so much. And then I feel guilty for thinking that. I love Dad._

_Maybe when I'm old enough he will take me with him. I'd like that. I want to fill up my passport with stamps and take albums full of pictures. I want to meet new people and maybe if I have a lot of friends, I will never be lonely like this. I will have a nice business card and give it to people. "Nancy Drew - Private Detective. No job too small."_

_I wish Dad were here. That's all I keep thinking, around and around again. I wish Dad were here. Please come home soon._

Nancy smiles as she closes the journal. She can still clearly remember how lonely she had been when her father had been gone, but the ache has faded over time. Now he is retired—well, mostly retired; he still takes the occasional trial. He can't stay away for long, and she knows exactly how that is.

Ned appears in the doorway. "Found it yet?"

"Almost." She glances up at him and smiles. He has his arms crossed, a slow fond smile curling his lips up, and he's leaning against the doorframe. Downstairs their parents are chatting and eating lunch together, but she wants to try one more time to find it.

"Need some help?"

"You, me, and a confined space? That generally ends one way, Nickerson." Her smile turns into a knowing grin.

"And that's a problem?"

She shakes her head, her ponytail brushing her shoulders, and reaches for the last box, craning to reach it. She takes it to her old dresser and slits the tape with her pocketknife, already knowing what she will see inside. She finds a jumble of treasures that had been important to her a decade earlier: friendship bracelets, souvenirs from her first few cases, her first rudimentary attempts at codes. At the bottom, her fingertips find the carved top of the handmade wooden case. The note inside is brittle with age, barely discolored, but the writing is still legible, in her careful cursive.

_To my possible future husband. No one else._

She closes the box and hands it to Ned; Ned chuckles when he reads it and glances back up at her, his long-lashed dark eyes sparkling. "Possible?"

"Definite. Now."

He unfolds it, then stretches an arm out, reaching for her. She rests against his side and in his embrace, and closes her eyes as he reads it, her words in his hushed, deep voice.

"'If I've decided to marry you, please be home for dinner. If we have children, be there to read them bedtime stories and help them with their homework and tuck them in. I will be away a lot and I hope you love them enough for both of us until I am back.

"'Please don't ever decide to be a lawyer.'" Ned's voice cracks a little, partially in humor, but he recovers. "'I hope I don't love you so much that I hate when we're apart, because we will be apart a lot. I hope we are good friends. And that you aren't gross. Be strong and brave and don't look down on me because I'm a girl. If you are going to then we shouldn't get married. I—'" His voice falters again. "'I might be a terrible wife. I don't know how to be a wife. Please be patient with me.

"'Sincerely, Nancy.'"

He's quiet for a minute, long enough for Nancy to open her eyes again. "Can I keep this?" he murmurs.

"It is addressed to you," she points out, and looks up into his face.

He brushes a strand of hair from her cheek. "Looks like you've just written my vows, Drew," he says, a hint of a smile on his face. "I promise not to be gross or misogynistic, and to love our children enough for both of us when I need to, and even when I don't. To be strong and brave and your best friend, and patient while we figure this out. To love you so much that I'm sick when we're apart. And to never be a lawyer."

"Sounds perfect," she murmurs, just before he leans down to press his lips against hers in a long, soft kiss.


End file.
